Christmas Day Post

Merry Christmas Everyone Have A Great Day. Enjoy it with the people you love and may many blessings come your way. It's not always about the presents or the food, it's about family and celebrating Jesus's birth. We may sing carols and we celebrate with family. One thing we do is that we go to church and we hear God's word, and we sing Christmas songs, and we hear sermons and we also hear the Christmas Story. I want to share some Christmas Traditions that people celebrate all around the world. Christmas in Costa Rica comes at the end of the school year and the start of the holidays - so people really look forward to getting to the beach! People like to decorate their houses with beautiful tropical flowers. A model of the nativity scene, called the Pasito or Portal, is the center of the display. It's also decorated with flowers and sometimes fruit. Some of the scenes take a long time to make and all the family is involved. As well as the traditional figures, people add other models including houses and lots of different sorts of animals. Christmas wreaths are made of cypress branches and are decorated with red coffee berries and ribbons. Most homes, shops and important buildings are decorated with Christmas lights. In Costa Rica, the gift bringer is often 'Niño dios' (Child God, meaning Jesus) or 'Colacho' (another name for St. Nicholas). Apples are popular in the run up to Christmas with apple stands appearing at the sides of the road. On Christmas Eve, everyone puts on their best clothes and goes to Midnight Mass. In Costa Rica it's called the 'Misa de Gallo (Mass of the Rooster); it's also called that in Spain. After Midnight Mass the main Christmas meal is eaten. It normal includes chicken and pork tamales that have been wrapped for cooking in plantain leaves. To drink there's lots of egg nog and rum punch! In Bulgaria, Christmas is celebrated on December 25th. Many countries in Eastern Europe celebrate Christmas on January 7th as most Orthodox Churches use the old Julian Calendar, but the Bulgarian Orthodox Church uses the Gregorian calendar Christmas in on the 25th December. For many Bulgarians, the preparations for Christmas start with Advent which lasts 40 days in the Orthodox Church and starts on November 15th. One legend in Bulgaria is that Mary started her labor on 'Ignazhden', December 20th (Saint Ignatius of Antioch's Day) and she gave birth of Christmas Eve but the birth of Jesus wasn't announced until Christmas Day. The 20th is also the traditional 'new year' in Bulgarian culture. It's traditional to eat a special ring shaped caked called 'kolaks' on this day.Christmas Eve (called 'Badni Veche') is a very important day and the main Christmas meal is eaten in the evening of Christmas Eve.The meal should traditionally have an odd number of dishes in it (normally 7, 9 or 11) and an odd number of people sitting around the table. (Salt, pepper and sugar can count as separate dishes!) Straw is often put under the tablecloth and you might even bring a wooden plough into the house and put it behind the door! These are meant to help you have good crops during the next year. There's a special round and decorated loaf of bread called 'pita' which has a coin baked in it. If you find the good you're meant to have good luck for the next year! The bread is normally cut by the oldest person at the meal and hands it around the table. Christmas in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is more of a religious festival than being commercial. Most people won't have any presents. Christmas Eve is very important with Churches having big musical evenings (many churches have at least 5 or 6 choirs) and a nativity play. These plays last a very long time. They start at the beginning of the evening with the creation and the Garden of Eden and end with the story of King Herod killing the baby boys. People taking part in the play really like to show off their 'best' acting skills and tend to go over the top and 'ham it up'! King Herod and the soldiers are often figures of fun (like pantomime 'baddies') and Mary is often well advanced in labor before she arrives! The birth of Jesus is timed to happen as close to midnight as possible and after that come the shepherds, the wise men and the slaughter of the innocents. This means the play normally finishes about 1am. However, in some places there will be further singing until dawn! The Christmas day service then starts at 9am with lots more singing. On Christmas day, most families try to have a better meal than usual. If they can afford it, they will have some meat (normally chicken or pork). The rest of the day is spent quite quietly, maybe sleeping after a busy and late night on Christmas Eve! People go back to work on the 26th (Boxing Day). Christmas is a very social time in Trinidad and Tobago with most people having parties. Both children and adults go from house to house between neighbors and relatives for food and drink. The radio stations play Trinidadian Christmas carols and songs as well as traditional and contemporary carols from the USA. A special Trinidadian music, Parang, is also played. Parang is an upbeat Venezuela-Trinidad hybrid. Most people paint and make repairs to their houses and hang new curtains and decorations (especially lights) for Christmas. Often, this is the time that most people buy new electrical appliances and furniture. Most families spend Christmas Day at home with friends and family members.The Christmas day meal is usually prepared throughout mid-December, and into the new year! The traditional Trinibagonian Christmas meal include apples and grapes, sorrel, ponche-de-creme (a version of egg nog), ham, turkey, homemade bread, ginger beer, pastelles (a version of tamales) and local wine. Trinidadian Christmas fruitcake is traditional and is eaten in most homes. The fruits (such as raisins and sultanas) in the cake are usually soaked in cherry wine, sherry and rum for several months before Christmas! To learn more about different Christmas Traditions from all of the world, I will be posting the link to the website, so that you can look and learn about how each country celebrates Christmas from the way we in the United States celebrate Christmas. I find it interesting that people have Christmas differently than we do and I think it's neat to learn about it too. http://www.whychristmas.com/cultures/trinidad_tobago.shtml Here is the link to the website, so you can learn about all the different countries and how they celebrate Christmas in their country. I hope everybody today has a wonderful Christmas Day with their families and friends. I hope that you have also learned some new things from today's post and will have enjoyed reading and learning about it, just as much as I have and did enjoy learning something new today, about different Christmas traditions. Merry Christmas Everyone and to all of your families and to anybody else who just needs a little bit of a good and happy Christmas because I know sometimes, kids who don't always get one.